How to become a better writer by embracing rejection

It’s rough out there being a writer. Getting rejected from a literary magazine sucks as it is, but getting rejected from a humor publication somehow seems to cut even deeper. And getting your poems about discontinued fast-food menu items from McSweeney’s is a whole new low. I mean, they publish just about anything these days.

If you want to be a writer, then the best thing you can do is develop a thick, thick skin. And the best way you can do that is by getting rejected. I mean, alcohol helps too, of course, as does negative self-talk, but there’s really no substitute for submitting to and getting rejected from the top magazines out there. I’m talking The New Yorker, Harper’s, Ploughshares, all of the Best Of The Best. The cream of the crop. If you really want to develop that stoic, self-effacing, hard-nosed aura that all of the best writers of the early twentieth century seem to have, then there’s really no substitute for sending in your highly polished work to the nation’s leading publications and getting shot down without mercy or delay.

Here's what you do: Next week, Tuesday maybe, spend a good hour or so putting on paper that clever, snarky article or top-ten list you've been thinking about the last few months. And don't hold back: If you think of something on-the-fence, put it in there anyway. That's what editors are for, after all! Then give it a once-over, read through McSweeney's unnecessarily pretentious submissions guidelines, and submit your bars following said guidelines 95% to a tee. (You don't want them thinking you're a conformist, after all.)

And that's it. In about a week or so they'll send you a polite but curt rejection notice that makes it abundantly clear that they took one look at your email, saw that it was poetry, yawned, took another sip of their americano or whatever, and hit the automated email-rejection button.

Look, I’m just preparing you for the real world here. Sure, there’s maybe one percent of you that are reading this that will actually make it in this world, by which I mean get some middling awards and maybe a couple of bucks here and there, but the vast, vast majority of you will wind up at the bottom of the slush pile, querying agents who just want to quit their jobs and live alone somewhere, forever wondering (you) whether it’s true that you’re really not different from anyone else out there.